Further Thought:

“After the descent of the Holy Spirit, … [believers] rejoiced in the sweetness of communion with saints. They were tender, thoughtful, self-denying, willing to make any sacrifice for the truth’s sake. In their daily association with one another, they revealed the love that Christ had enjoined upon them.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

By unselfish words and deeds they strove to kindle this love in other hearts. …

But gradually a change came. The believers began to look for defects in others. Dwelling upon mistakes, giving place to unkind criticism, they lost sight of the Saviour and His love. They became more strict in regard to outward ceremonies, more particular about the theory than the practice of the faith. In their zeal to condemn others, they overlooked their own errors. They lost the brotherly love that Christ had enjoined, and, saddest of all, they were unconscious of their loss. They did not realize that happiness and joy were going out of their lives and that, having shut the love of God out of their hearts, they would soon walk in darkness.

John, realizing that brotherly love was waning in the church, urged upon believers the constant need of this love. His letters to the church are full of this thought. ‘Beloved, let us love one another,’ he writes; ‘for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.’” — Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, Pages 547, 548.

Discussion Questions:

<–Thursday

Amen!(3)

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Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.  Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 14:4-5 NKJV

About 5 years ago I wrote an article about single people resisting sexual temptations. A married person commented and told me the article was also very beneficial for married people as well. So in the light of a Scripture in this week’s lesson study, here goes my talk again for both married as well as single people. 

Image © Lars Justinen Goodsalt.com

Hebrews 13 is making Christian living practical. Verse 4 is teaching about practical living when it comes to sex. So how does this relate to single people? Some may think that it has nothing to do with single people. After all what do single people have to do with keeping the marriage bed undefiled? Well, sadly there are single church members who get propositioned by married church members. When this happens we keep the marriage bed undefiled by turning down those propositions and reminding the married party about Jesus and their commitment. Verses 4-5 also talk about being content with what you have. As single people, we can be content with meaningful relationships that don’t include sex. After all, even if you are married, life is not all about marriage and sex. The Christian church at large is learning it has made mistakes in the past by stressing sexual purity and purity rings, and talking about how great sex will be once you are married. Now teaching sexual purity is no mistake! it is right on with the Gospel. The problem is the church made such a big deal about sex and marriage that it caused two problems. 1. It built up so much unrealistic anticipation for sex, that once those with purity rings finally got married and had sex they found it disappointing. It just didn’t live up to all the hype. 2. Focusing on sex and marriage all the time encourages people to think that life is all about sex and marriage, while it clearly is not. Jesus, who was single, endorsed the gift (notice its a gift not a curse or burden)  of celibacy in Matthew 19:11-12. Paul joins Jesus in lauding the blessings of single living in 1 Corinthians 7. By reading Scripture you would never get the idea that life is all about being married, as some have preached and taught in recent years. 

I believe instead of teaching young people to keep themselves pure for marriage, I believe we should teach them to keep themselves pure for Jesus. Instead of encouraging young people to constantly occupy their minds with waiting for marriage, I believe we should encourage them to occupy their minds on waiting for Jesus to come. 

Today there are more and more divorced Christians, and people who have other ambitions, who are putting off marriage until later in life. Being single, I find myself in single circles, where single Christians, both men and women voice their sexual frustration. They are not trying to be provocative or seductive. They are just being real. They want to be Christians, but they are still sexual. We are not made sexual at marriage. We are made sexual at birth.

Being made sexual at birth, how do Christians control sexual appetite until they are married? How do Christian divorced people control their sexual urges? How do Christian widows and widowers satisfy their sexual needs? After 60 years of marriage, I don’t imagine sexual urges die after your spouse dies. Does God meet the sexual needs of all these single people?

And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19 NLT

If it says God will supply all our needs, we have to understand that includes sexual needs of single people. If we can trust God to provide for our financial needs, we can trust Him to provide for our sexual needs as well. We can go to Him and tell Him about all our needs. Then we can trust Him to provide in a way that is best for us. We are familiar with a phrase in Desire of Ages,

Our heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us, of which we know nothing. Those who accept the one principle of making the service and honor of God supreme will find perplexities vanish, and a plain path before their feet. –Ellen White, Desire of Ages, Page 330.

Was sex the context here? No. Am I taking things out of context if I say God has a thousand ways to provide for our sexual needs, when we serve and honor God? Maybe, but please hear me out. First, we need to understand that marriage does not guarantee sex. Sadly there are celibate marriages for various reasons we won’t get into here. Having said that, sex does not guarantee intimacy. I once read in a sexual purity book long ago, that some people will have sex to avoid intimacy! Instead of talking and being intimate with their hearts and emotions, they will just be physical to avoid being intimate. Now that’s not good either, because sex should involve intimacy. But here is my point: Many of us think we crave sex when we actually crave intimacy. All sex should be intimate, but not all intimacy has to be sex.

I think we crave healthy relationships more than we crave sex. I think Mary Magdalene found something in Jesus that satisfied her desire for sex, even though it wasn’t sex, and Jesus was the perfect Gentleman with her. I think she found something in Him greater than sex. She found true love and intimacy. She needed true love and intimacy more than she needed sex. So do we.

God does not require us to give up anything that it is for our best interest to retain. In all that He does, He has the well-being of His children in view. Would that all who have not chosen Christ might realize that He has something vastly better to offer them than they are seeking for themselves. –Ellen White, Steps to Christ, Page 46.

I have to believe this passage includes sexual activity. If God has not given you a Christian sex life right now, it is only because He has something vastly better for you right now. He knows all your needs, not just the needs of your bank account. He knows your sexual needs too. He cares for you in all your ways. By the way, a while back I heard a married Christian say, “sex is not a need. It is a want.” That would apply to married as well as single people. I am in no way implying that married people should limit sexual activity. I’m just saying when dealing with temptations and urges it is important to know the difference between needs and wants. 

The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right. Psalms 84:11 NLT

If sex was good for single people God would give it to them, but sex is not good for single people, which is the only reason He does not give it to them. But love and intimacy is good for single people, and He gives that to them, through church, family, and a personal relationship with Him.

Though I don’t have all the answers, I believe God can supply the sexual needs of His single people, with pure love and intimacy, and a thousand other ways we know nothing about. The solution is to trust God with your sexual needs just like any other need.

Please let me paraphrase a popular passage.

Keep your [sexual] wants, your joys, your sorrows, your cares, and your fears before God. You cannot burden Him; you cannot weary Him. He who numbers the hairs of your head is not indifferent to the [sexual] wants of His children. “The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” James 5:11. His heart of love is touched by our [sexual] sorrows and even by our utterances of them. Take to Him everything [including sex] that perplexes the mind. Nothing is too great for Him to bear, for He holds up worlds, He rules over all the affairs of the universe. Nothing that in any way concerns our [sexual] peace is too small for Him to notice. There is no chapter in our experience too dark for Him to read; there is no perplexity too difficult for Him to unravel. No [Sexual] calamity can befall the least of His children, no anxiety harass the soul, no joy cheer, no sincere prayer escape the lips, of which our heavenly Father is unobservant, or in which He takes no immediate interest. “He healeth the [sexually] broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3. The relations between God and each soul are as distinct and full as though there were not another soul upon the earth to share His watchcare, not another soul for whom He gave His beloved Son. –Ellen White, Steps to Christ, Page 100. 

God loves single people just as much as He loves married people, and He makes single people just as happy as married people. God can appropriately meet the sexual needs of single people as easily as He can meet the sexual needs of married people. Believe in His love, and He will meet all your daily needs.

Amen!(0)

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Compare Hebrews 13:10-14, Mark 8:34, Matthew 10:38, Luke 14:27, and Galatians 2:20. What does it mean to go to Jesus outside the camp?

The place outside the gate was the most impure of the whole camp. The carcasses of the sacrificial animals were burned there (Leviticus 4:12). Lepers were also excluded from the camp (Leviticus 13:46) and blasphemers and other criminals were executed there (Leviticus 24:10-16, Leviticus 24:23; 1 Kings 21:13; Acts 7:58). These regulations presupposed that the presence of God was within the camp. Anything that was impure was cast outside because God was unwilling to see any “unclean” or “indecent” thing in it (Numbers 5:3, Deuteronomy 23:14).

Image © Rolf Jansson from GoodSalt.com

Jesus suffered on the cross outside Jerusalem (John 19:17-20). This emphasizes the shame that was cast upon Him (Hebrews 12:2). He was officially condemned as one who had “blasphemed the Name” and, therefore, was repudiated by Israel and executed outside the wall (Mark 14:63-64; see Leviticus 24:11, Leviticus 24:16). Jesus was cast outside the camp as a “shameful,” “unclean,” or “indecent” thing (Hebrews 12:2). Paul, however, exhorts believers to follow Jesus outside the gate, enduring the shame that He endured (Hebrews 12:2; see Hebrews 13:13). This was also the path Moses followed, who chose to bear “the reproach of Christ” instead of the treasures of Egypt (Hebrews 11:26).

Paradoxically, however, Hebrews suggests that God’s presence is now outside the camp. The action of following Jesus outside the camp means not only “bearing His reproach,” or shame, but also going “forth to Him” (Hebrews 13:13, NKJV) just as those Israelites who “sought the Lord” went “outside the camp” in the desert when Moses removed God’s tent from the camp after the golden calf controversy (Exodus 33:7. NKJV). This account suggests that the rejection of Jesus by unbelievers also implied the rejection of God, as Israel did in the golden calf apostasy (Exodus chapters 32, 33). Thus, the path of suffering and shame is also the path to God.

Paul invites readers to follow Jesus as “the author and finisher” of their faith (Hebrews 12:2), implicitly inviting them also to consider their present sufferings a momentary discipline that will yield “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11). They are leaving behind a corrupted city or camp in search of “the city that is to come” whose architect is God (Hebrews 13:14, ESV; Hebrews 11:10, Hebrews 11:16).

<–Wednesday Friday–>

Amen!(0)

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Compare Hebrews 13:9; Hebrews 2:9; Hebrews 4:16; and Hebrews 6:19-20. Where is grace obtained? How are our hearts strengthened?

The relationship between false teachings and foods, touched on in Hebrews 13:9, probably does not refer to the distinction between clean and unclean foods.

Why?

Image © Jeff Preston at Goodsalt.com

First, Paul does not seem concerned in the epistle with the distinction between clean and unclean foods. We know from Acts chapter 15 that the early Christian church affirmed both that believers are saved by grace (Acts 15:7-11) and that they should continue to observe some food regulations (Acts 15:19-20). The distinction between clean and unclean foods and other biblical regulations are not opposed to grace. In fact, Paul argues that the new covenant has put the law in the heart (Hebrews 8:10-12). What the author makes very clear, however, is that animal sacrifices and the Levitical priestly mediation in the sanctuary have been superseded by the superior sacrifice and priestly mediation of Jesus (Hebrews 8:4-5; Hebrews 10:1-18).

Second, the context suggests that Paul is criticizing the audience not for abstaining from certain foods but for partaking of them with the hope of somehow obtaining grace or merit (Hebrews 13:9). He is probably warning against participating in Jewish ritual or cultic meals that were celebrated as an extension of the animal sacrifices in the temple and which were supposed to provide spiritual benefits, or grace. But grace is not mediated through these meals; grace comes only through the sacrifice and priestly mediation of Jesus Christ. Believers “have an altar” (Hebrews 13:10), the cross of Christ, from which they can eat (John 6:47-58).

In Hebrews, “grace” comes from the throne of God (Hebrews 4:16). This grace, mediated through Christ, is an “anchor,” “sure and steadfast,” that is fastened to God’s throne itself (Hebrews 6:19-20; compare with Hebrews 4:16). It is this grace that we receive through the sacrifice of Christ, which provides stability and assurance to our hearts. When the heart has been “established” in this way, it will not be “carried about” by new doctrines (Hebrews 13:9), nor will it “drift away” from God (Hebrews 2:1, NKJV).

<–Tuesday Thursday–>

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This video is produced by the South Pacific Division Discipleship team.

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